Kanjincho (The Subscription List) is a Kabuki play written by Namiki Gohei III, based on the Noh play Ataka. It is part of the story cycle around Yoshitsune, the famous 12th c. military commander of the Minamoto clan, and his helper, the warrior monk Benkei. The young Yoshitsune had been so successful in the campaigns against the Heike clan that his elder half-brother Yoritomo, the clan leader, had become jealous and turned against him, after which Yoshitsune fled to the more friendly territory of Hiraizumi in northeastern Japan. The play depicts the verbal fencing that occurs when Yoshitsune and Benkei with their followers, dressed as mountain priests (yamabushi), have to pass through the checkpoint barrier at Ataka on their way to the north. The barrier guards have strict orders to capture Yoshitsune and persistently question the travelers, who need all their resourcefulness to pass through the checkpoint, The play was first performed in March 1840 at the Kawarazakiza in Edo and is one of the most popular plays in the modern kabuki repertory.
[Kunichika]
Kanjincho is not only a historical play (jidaimono), but also a dance drama (shosagoto), which uses a nagauta ensemble. And it is a matsubame-mono, a Kabuki play based on a Noh play.
The plot is as follows:
Togashi Saemon, a local noble who is in charge of the barrier, explains in an introductory speech the reason why Yoritomo has ordered checkpoints set up all over the country. He warns his men to be vigilant, for Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the great warrior of the Minamoto clan, is said to be traveling to the north, disguised as a yamabushi.
Yoshitsune and his small party of retainers enter along the hanamichi to a famous passage of lyrical singing (nagauta). Yoshitsune's men were for fighting their way past the barrier, but the formidable Musashibo Benkei, Yoshitsune's right-hand man, advises against it and proposes a ruse: Yoshitsune is dressed as a porter with a wide straw hat, carrying a load on his back and bringing up the rear. Benkei then leads the group to the barrier, where he claims that they are simple priests journeying around the northern provinces, seeking donations for the rebuilding of the Todaiji in Nara.
Togashi asks that they prove themselves to be priests and demands to see a kanjincho, a subscription scroll in which the purpose of the fund raising is explained and people are exhorted to donate generously. In a particularly famous moment in Kabuki, Benkei pulls out a blank scroll and begins reading from it as if it were a real subscription list, in a magnificent improvisation. As Benkei is reading, Togashi tries to catch a glimpse of the scroll - Benkei's pose as he attempts to keep the scroll from being seen, is very famous in Kabuki. But Togashi does manage to glance at the scroll and Benkei realizes that Togashi has seen that there is nothing written on it.
But although Togashi knows for certain now that the scroll is a fake, he says nothing as he appreciates Benkei's courageous ingenuity and is prepared to let him go on with the deception. Togashi then asks Benkei in a yamabushi-mondo about the costume and equipment of a priest and the meaning of some difficult Buddhist terms. Benkei answers all these questions correctly. Togashi is very impressed by Benkei's display of knowledge, and says there is no longer any suspicion. He thanks Benkei for having given him the chance to come into contact with Buddhism and asks to make his own offering to the fund.
Togashi gives the group permission to pass through the barrier, but when Yoshitsune is about to go through it, he is recognized by one of the guards and ordered to stop. Benkei, thinking quickly, pretends that Yoshitsune is simply his personal porter and censures him for arousing suspicion and causing trouble. In a second climax, he even strikes him - striking one's superior in feudal Japanese society was a lèse-majesté crime. The compassionate Togashi sees through the ruse, but out of admiration for Benkei's devotion to his master, allows the group to pass. When they have safely passed the barrier, Yoshitsune thanks Benkei, and his display of gratitude as well as Benkei's emotional reaction to it, form the third climax of the play.
Meanwhile, Togashi has followed them with an offer of sake to speed them on their journey. Benkei becomes drunk and performs a "dance of longevity" (ennen no mai). At one point, he signals Yoshitsune and the others to depart while the barrier guards are not watching. As Benkei leaves, he turns one last time to Togashi, whom he knows now has to pay with his own life for helping the enemy.
As the curtain falls, Benkei is left alone at the foot of the hanamichi, to perform his famous tobiroppo exit, a Kabuki technique for leaving the scene, chasing after the others in a series of exaggerated leaps and bounds.
In this way, the relatively short play is full of highlights. Benkei's role is a difficult one, demanding a heroic and stirring yet thoughtful character, and needing both oratorical skill and accomplishment in dance.
[Ebizo Ichikawa V as Benkei and Danjuro Ichikawa VIII as Tokashi,
by Kunisada]
Kanjincho by Namiki Gohei III from 1840 was not the first Kabuki play about the troubles of Benkei and Yoshitsune at the Ataka Barrier. A well-known earlier play is Gohiiki Kanjincho, "Great Favorite Subscription List," by Sakurada Jisuke I, dating from 1773. This is even more an aragoto-style showpiece than Kanjincho and it also contains quite a lot of farce. The ending is also different: when Benkei remains behind, he does battle with the barrier guards and kills them all. He then puts their severed heads in a huge vat with water and performs a grotesque "potato washing" (imo arai), what in fact seems to be a New Year's ceremony (normally with real potatoes, not heads!). So it makes the play suitable for a New Year's kaomise performance. But in this play everything is exaggerated - the flamboyant mie poses, the larger-than-life characters, the colorful kumadori make-up, and the long battle scene - the play by Namiki Gohei III is closer to the original Noh play, more realistic and above all more sophisticated. Moreover, in the course of the years, the production has been refined by many famous actors, making Kanjincho a very popular repertory piece that is performed regularly even today.
A film adaptation worth mentioning is The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (Tora no O wo Fumu Otokotachi), by Kurosawa
Akira, filmed in 1945. Kurosawa added a character not
in the original: a porter, played by the popular comedian Enoken. His
total misunderstanding of the principles motivating the behavior of the
samurai slyly undermines the feudal ideology of the play. In other
words, this is a rather strongly anti-feudal film - something the
Occupation authorities didn't get, for they banned the film in the immediate postwar years and it was
only shown in 1953.
Kanjincho was translated into English by James R. Brandon and Tamako Niwa in Kabuki Plays (The Zen Substitute and The Subscription List), published in 1966 and now out of print.
Gohiiki Kanjincho is available in Kabuki Plays on Stage, Villainy and Vengeance 1773-1799, ed. James Brandon & Samual Leiter (Hawaii U.P.) in a translation by Leonard C. Pronko.
The Noh play Ataka is available in Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, ed. Haruo Shirane (Columbia) in a translation by Anthony H. Chambers.
Illustrations from Wikimedia Commons.
Greatest Plays of All Time